Page 50 of Her Impeccable Scoundrel
A cold chill went through him and a memory flashed. Sir Morris had supposedly been carrying the new will.
“She told me to get out and close the door behind me. She’d never before sent me away like that. And she was crying.”
I am not a murderer, Blythe had said.
But she was surely a thief. That had been the new will she was burning. How had she obtained it from Sir Morris? Was it before or after his death?
Anger flared in him but he was careful to hide it from the girl. It wasn’t Coralie’s fault. Blythe had lied to the girl as well—lies of omission, Coralie had called them, but lies nevertheless.
She hadn’t trusted Graeme with the truth.
“After Lord Chilcombe died, she had to go away,” Coralie said. “It was because of Lord Vernon. Do you know him, my lord?”
“I have met him.”
Her gaze narrowed. “Is he your friend?”
“Emphatically, no.”
She nodded and let out a long breath. “He had taken up residence at Wickworth Hall. He called every day, sometimes twice a day, and he lurked in the fields all around, and… she was afraid.” Coralie shuddered. “She would never say it, but I knew it. He wanted her to be his mistress.”
The girl’s frankness shocked him.
“I should not know about such things, I know, but one can’t help but overhear gossip.”
“Did he ever bother you or Nicholas?”
“He was never allowed into the house—we were in mourning. Louisa and Samuel barred him from entry. Nicholas and I knew to make ourselves scarce when he came around.” Her brows drew together. “And I remembered him, you see. He is not a good man. He was there the night the baby died.”
“Did he bother you or Nicholas when you went into the village? Or perhaps at church?”
“After Lord Chilcombe died, Louisa did all our shopping. And we stopped going to church years before that when the vicar asked us to stay away.”
The vicar had asked them to stay away? No wonder Blythe had stiffened when they’d discussed the vicar the night before.
No wonder she guarded her secrets so carefully.
“So Lord Vernon had no particular interest in you or in Nicholas?”
She gave him an assessing look. “He is Nicholas’s father, isn’t he? There is a strong resemblance. The village gossips whisper that he’s Lord Vernon’s bastard by Godmama, but I know that’s not true because I saw him being born.” Color rose in her cheeks. “I wasn’t supposed to, but I heard all the screaming and sneaked into the birthing room.”
He remembered stumbling across a woman giving birth on the outskirts of an army camp years earlier.
“A terrifying experience,” he said.
Coralie turned a curious gaze on him and her lips quirked.
“It wasn’t so long after Godmama lost her child, and not as scary, because no one had been trying to hurt Nicholas’s mother. And when Nicholas came out… well, Godmama feared it would put me off marriage, but…”
She stopped, apparently realizing she’d stumbled into unacceptable territory, and the blush crept up her cheeks again.
She would lead all the young bucks a merry chase if he could give her a season.
“And here we are.” Blythe appeared in the doorway, her hand firmly clutching that of a slight little boy in a dusty coat and trousers.
A tousle of curly hair, so dark it was almost black, covered one eye, but Graeme could see that the one visible eye was the same golden hazel as Lord Vernon’s and Diddenton’s. Like the eyes of a venomous snake ready to strike.
But this was a little boy, and the only emotion Graeme saw in his eyes was fear.
